This week's examples:
In his speech marking the 31st Anniversary of the so-called Islamic Revolution (a term deserving of a separate blog) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the U.K, the United States and the West that:
"The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to build nuclear bombs we would announce it publicly without being afraid of you."The Iranian nation is, however, apparently plenty afraid of its own people.
Al Jazeera 11 Feb 2010
The government spared no expense in deploying the entire national police, the army and all security forces to dispel and arrest -- shooting to kill, if necessary -- students, dissidents and ordinary Iranian citizens who think he stole the election and want their country back.
"We're not afraid of America half-way around the world but we're plenty afraid of those guys down the street at Tehran University."
Hypocrisy Factor Score: 8 out of 10
An Italian court has ruled that an ancient sculpture currently sitting in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles must be returned to Italy. The piece, officially known as "Victorious Youth" is more commonly known as the "Getty Bronze" because it has been at the museum for so long.
The Getty has announced it will appeal Italian Judge Lorena Mussoni's 37-page decision.
The statue has been a source of contention between the Italian culture ministry and the Getty for years and the subject of a long-running legal battle in Pesaro, Italy
The Los Angeles Times 11 February 2010
Italy is anxious to repatriate this item because it's a classic piece of Italian art, right?
No.
". . . experts believed [it] was created in Greece between the 2nd and 4th century BC., perhaps by Lysippos, the personal sculptor for Alexander the Great."
ibid
The piece is Greek.
Arount the time of Christ, Roman thieves stole the piece from Greece but their ship sunk off Italy's Adriatic coast, where it lay untouched until 1964, when it was snagged in the nets of fishermen fishing in international waters.
The statue, one of the few complete Greek bronzes to survive, was likely lost at sea after being taken by Roman soldiers around the time of Christ.
In 1964, Italian fishermen from the village of Fano hauled up the barnacle-encrusted statue in their nets while trawling in international waters of the Adriatic Sea.
Rather than declare it to Italian customs authorities, they buried it in a cabbage patch and sold it to middlemen, who hid it in a local priest's bathtub before it was smuggled out of the country. ibid
It was later sold to a European collector and it was from there that J. Paul Getty, himself, purchased the piece for $4 Million.
Aware of the earlier legal case, Getty insisted Italy approve of the purchase before the deal was finalized, records show. ibid
"So, a piece that Romans pilfered from the Greeks want it back from an American purchaser. Because it was "stolen" from Italy . . .
. . . . but not from Greece. Right."
Hypocrisy Factor Score: 7 on a scale of 10
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